Kristen Beddard
on Tour
July 24-August 4
with
Bonjour Kale:
A Memoir of Paris, Love, and Recipes
(a Paris memoir)
Release date: May 6, 2016
at Sourcebooks
ISBN: 978-1492630043
352 pages
Website
Goodreads
SYNOPSIS
A memoir of love, life, and recipes from the woman who brought kale to the City of Light.
The story of how one expat woman left her beloved behind when she moved to France-her beloved kale, that is. Unable to find le chou kale anywhere upon moving to the City of Light with her new husband, and despite not really speaking French, Kristen Beddard launched a crusade to single-handedly bring kale to the country of croissants and cheese. Infused with Kristen’s recipes and some from French chefs, big and small (including Michelin star chef Alain Passard) Bonjour Kale is more than just a leafy-green. It is a humorous, heartfelt memoir of how Kristen finds herself in a new home and how she, kale, and France collide.
Review:
This book follows the author Kristen as her and her husband travel from NY to France. Kristen had a very organic and vegetable centered eating pattern and when she moved to France she found out that kale was not readily available. Kale had recently taken off in America and was found on every street corner.
I enjoyed learning the history of why kale was not readily available in France as well as more about the markets and how they are setup in France. I like that vegetables are sold fresh from farmers and only when in season. I do find it strange in the winter to see so many vegetables readily available at the supermarket and it always makes me question them.
I loved how the author was able to take her life story about moving to another country and incorporate it into the book it really made the story feel very honest and heartfelt. Kristen explained the challenges of moving to a foreign country and also gave some basic French expectations that I did not know anything about. The culture that the author was able to bring into the book made me want to keep on reading more. I loved hearing the challenges of learning a new language, culture, as well as trying to find a new job all in one book. The French culture shined through very brightly in this book and would be a perfect read for someone who might be moving to France to learn some important tips.
I loved the recipes that the author gave in the book. I enjoyed how she gave details of how the recipe became to be as well as tips when making the item. I loved how she explained the importance of massaging the kale before making a salad, I find kale hard to eat if not steamed or properly prepared so now I have a large amount of new recipes to try.
The major item that I didn't love in the book was the length. I felt like about half way through the author accomplished her point and I felt like some sections began to drag on into one another. I felt like some sections could have been combined or it wasn't really information that I needed to know.
I would suggest this as a nighttime read. It was perfect to end your day with reaching the journey of one person trying to bring kale to another country.
My Rating: 4/5
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kristen Beddard
is the American author of
Bonjour Kale: A Memoir of Paris, Love and Recipes
and a contributing author to We Love Kale.
She is the founder of The Kale Project,
a blog and successful initiative
that reintroduced kale to France
and was featured in The New York Times,
Conde Nast Traveler, Self Magazine and more.
She has a certificate in Culinary Nutrition
from the Natural Gourmet Institute
and is currently working on a new book Roots, Shoots and Stalks
about food waste and cooking with the whole vegetable.
She resides in New York City with her husband and daughter.
Follow her @thekaleproject and at www.thekaleproject.com.
You can also follow Kristen on Facebook and Instagram
Buy the book: on Amazon | on Barnes & Noble
***
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Be sure to follow each participant on Twitter/Facebook,
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***
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Excerpt:
Bonjour Kale: Chapter 3 (Part 1)
Walking
down boulevard de Courcelles toward place des Ternes, the Arc de Triomphe
peeked out in the distance. The avenue des Ternes was a busy main road, with
noisy traffic and chain stores, and was a stark contrast to the small,
pedestrian-only rue Poncelet. As if I’d pulled back a curtain and gone back in
time, the modern city rush dissipated behind me as I walked Poncelet’s quaint village
tableau.
The
corner broke into two streets, rue Poncelet to my right and rue Bayen to my
left, encompassing more than a dozen small shops. The grocer on the corner
featured the in-season cèpes, large
fairy-tale-like porcini mushrooms. Sold by the container, their fat tops and
thick trunks (which are sometimes filled with insects) were cut in half to
display clean insides. The mushroom halves were lined up next to a matrix of
dark purple figs, so tender and ripe their skin was beginning to split near the
tops. Bumblebees swarmed over each fig tip, hoping for a tiny taste of the
gooey, pink fruit.
Taking
in the warming scents and rowdy noises, I noticed a boucherie with cow tongues and hooves in the front window case. A
rabbit with its brown fur sticking out hung from the ceiling, with a sign
clipped to its foot, “Sold.” Men behind the counter wore bloodstained white
aprons and worked on wooden counters, dented from years of pounding meat. A
handwritten chart hung on the wall, outlining where each cut of meat came from
and they rung up every purchase on an antique cash register.
Beads
of sweat dripped from the poulet
man’s brow as he placed chickens, pink with goose-bump skin, onto rotating
roasting spits.
They revolved
in rows of eight, attached to a large wall of flames, while potatoes, onions,
and peppers cooked below, soaking up the juices dripping from the birds.
Young
men outfitted in knee-high, rubber rain boots and bright blue jackets and
aprons circled the outside tables of the poissonnerie,
shoveling ice chips onto trays of crevette
rose (pink shrimp), oursin (sea
urchin), and bulot (whelk) that
spiraled like the turret of a castle. As each fish was filleted, the heads
collected in buckets on the ground, wet from melted ice.
Vendors
hollered playfully to each other and at passersby, shouting reasons to buy their bright red strawberries or crisp,
green-tipped endive over anyone else’s. Being in this market was magical, like
I was part of a sacred daily ritual. We were all there with the same goal in
mind: to decide what we would take home that day to nourish ourselves and our
families. It felt more real than going to a supermarket and thoughtlessly
dumping king-size packages into a shopping cart. The purchases at this market
were deliberate and intentional.
Old
French grandmas, or bonne-mamans as
they are affectionately called, impeccably dressed with not a strand of hair
out of place, toddled past, inspecting each piece of produce.
“Monsieur, I would like some mirabelles,
please,” a bonne-maman said, asking
for the small, golden plums that are ripe every September.
Dressed in a
fur coat with an elegant walking stick at her side, she stood her ground at the
front of the stand, making sure no one cut in front of her.
“Bonjour, madame, of course, but today we
are selling them on special,” he exclaimed, hoping that his special price was
better than the other man’s price a few stands away.
“That’s
wonderful, monsieur,” she replied,
moving her cane a centimeter to the right, maintaining her balance against the
rush of shoppers behind her. “But it is just me and my husband. It is not
possible to eat all of these in only a few days!”
“Why,
of course, madame. I will give you a poignée, a handful for today, they will
be ripe and sweet, and then you will have another handful for later this week,
which will ripen over time,” he explained, feeling through the mound of
yellow-green fruits, searching for the perfect pieces for today and for later.
The sweet granny was satisfied.
The
maraîcher knew best. Initially, not
being able to pick out my own produce stressed me out. I didn’t know all the
words for everything or how to ask for what I wanted—at least not clearly and
succinctly. And when you have a line of anxious and impatient
French women
sighing behind you, it becomes even harder to speak correctly without a frog in
your throat. But I learned to let the market men and women choose. After all,
it is their métier, profession. They
know better than I do when a peach will be ripe or which apples have a sweeter
bite.
Our
first market excursion was exciting. I loved the energy, the options, and the
smiling people, laughing and so joyful to share their food with you. For my
first cooking effort in Paris, I decided not to be very adventurous, but I did
want to prepare something using fresh ingredients: salmon, roasted potatoes,
and a kale salad. And that’s when it hit me.
“Philip,
do you know what I haven’t seen yet?” I asked, stopping midstep by the last
vegetable stand on the street. “Kale. Not one leaf.”
Getting Off: One Women's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction by Erica Garza
Erica Garza’s essays have appeared in Salon, Narratively, BUST, Good Housekeeping, and the Los Angeles Review, among other publications. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. Getting Off, her memoir on sex addiction, is her first book. Born in Los Angeles to a Mexican father and a Mexican-American mother, she has spent the majority of her adult life traveling and living abroad. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
